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As with the other posts in this series, I’m simulating the checklist from the 1964 Topps Giant-Sized All-Stars set (commonly known as “1964 Giants”) by selecting three representative players from each team.

Unlike the previous posts, I’m going to list 3 cards which I chose for each team’s checklist, but for three of today’s four teams I’m only including one custom per team. Time grows tight for me, and interest wanes for everybody.

DIAMONDBACKS

I’d forgotten that I’d already done a team set for the Diamondbacks. They were in first place as late as September 1st… and then the wheels came off and they went 9-18 during the month of September and finished well behind the Dodgers and Rockies.

Paul Goldschmidt – All-Star several years running, Silver Slugger, centerpiece of this team. Don’t even argue that he shouldn’t be here.

Zack Greinke – All-Star four of the past five years, Gold Glove five years straight, 15-11, 3.21, 1.071 WHIP.

MARLINS
J.T. Realmuto – clearly the best player on this team, which is why there’s all kinds of rumors of his being traded. I’m thinking this will be the last custom I’ll make featuring the Loria Era uniforms. They grew on me a little bit over the years, but I won’t really miss them.

The other two unmade customs on this checklist:

Brian Anderson – Lead the team in On-base % and doubles, but as I was finalizing this post I realized that Anderson probably shouldn’t be here because of my “June checklist” rule… Maybe Starlin Catro instead?

Justin Bour – Reminder – I’m doing these based on the rosters as of June, when the checklist for this imaginary set was imaginarily finalized. Sure, Bour got traded to Philly… but the flip side is that he was good enough that he got traded to Philly.

Max Scherzer – gotta have the oversized card to highlight his eyes. This Mets fan won’t begrudge anyone who argues that Scherzer should have won the Cy… I won’t agree, but I respect that argument. Scherzer lead the Majors with 300 K’s, tied for the NL lead with 18 wins and started the All-Star game.

The other two unmade customs on this checklist:

Angry mobs would burn down the fictional Shlabotnik Industries, Inc. factory if Bryce Harper weren’t included, but if you catch me when I’m feeling ornery I would argue that the following two players mentioned deserve it more. Harper also started the All-Star game, drove in 100 and lead the Majors in walks.

Trea Turner – Lead the league with 43 stolen bases; scored 103 runs, drove in 73 runs. Until I researched this post I forgot that the Padres sent him to DC in a 2015 three-team trade.

I can’t help but wonder if Trea Turner and Anthony Rendon should’ve gotten preference over His Bryceness… Or Juan Soto if this were an after-the-season checklist rather than a finalized-in-June checklist. I’m frankly happy that, barring a team owner getting bonked on the head with a bowling ball and changing personality, neither of my two teams is going to be the one regretting a $400 million Bryce Harper contract come 2022.

Of course, I also thought Roger Clemens was washed up in the mid 1990’s (*cough* steroids *cough*). I really need to work on that series of “Shlabotnik’s Hall Of Disdain” posts…

Also considered: Sean Doolittle, Daniel Murphy, Ryan Zimmerman

PADRES

This was a rough bunch to pick because… well, this is not a good team.

Eric Hosmer – The biggest name on the team, lead the team in hits, doubles, runs and RBI.

The other two unmade customs on this checklist:

Hunter Renfroe – Lead the team in home runs and slugging %.

Travis Jankowski – team leader in batting average, on-base % and stolen bases. I kinda like Jankowski so I may go back and make a custom for him.

As of right now, I’m planning on another two or three posts in this series, just to get through the remaining 11 teams in some form, plus a couple of “bonus cards” that I’ve promised. If you would like to see customs of cards I’d listed but didn’t make, or of someone who didn’t get past the “also considered” phase, just ask me nicely in the comments and I’ll see what I can do.

Over the past few weeks, the majority of the custom cards I’ve posted here have been my tributes to the 1964 Topps “Giants” set. There are more of those coming, but I wanted to take some time and share some of the other offseason custom projects I’ve been working on.

I’ve been using a variety of oddball designs in the offseason ever since 2012/13 when this guy had just been hired to manage the Red Sox…

I used these customs to highlight new managers, player movement and other offseason developments.

Back in 2014 I started to play around with faux “3-D” customs

…and yes, the 3-D customs will be back, once some of the bigger names start moving around.

As an attempted side project which never took off as much as I’d intended, in 2015 I started creating custom non-sports cards, the TSR “Fauxback” set.
I really like this design, I wish I’d done more with it at the time…

…but anyway…

A few weeks ago I introduced the first of my TSR Hot Stove customs, based on (but not completely faithful to) the 1962 Post set. Here’s are two more examples, one featuring new Angels manager Brad Ausmus…

…and the other featuring new Rangers manager Chris Woodward:

As 1962 Post collectors can tell, I’ve gone rogue with the colors used and made them more team-based. I’ve also ditched the stats and will replace them with other things.

This past week I unveiled my new TSR Fauxback design to highlight new Twins manager Rocco Baldelli (The Twins tweeted out a bigger photo of Rocco than the other managers got, so I figured “why waste it?”)

This design is meant to evoke the non-sport Topps sets of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, complete with the card number on the front (in the upper right corner) and in what I thought was a fun development for my custom cards, puzzles on the back! YAAAAY!

I shared these images on Twitter earlier this week, and the response was “crickets”.

…BUT I REMAIN UNDAUNTED!!!

I also think that the design might appeal to people more if they see a bunch at the same time, so all y’all can get an idea of what I’m doing here.

And so…

The Miami Marlins unveiled their new uniforms yesterday, I thought the Fauxback design, combined with images published by the Marlins, would work well for expanding on the few thoughts I’d tweeted.

My initial reaction to these uniforms was that it was a lateral move from the one’s they’d had since 2012, more of an “Under New Management” sign than any huge improvement.

(here’s the puzzle back for card #6…)

…funny how the full-bleed nature of the backs make them look bigger than the front…

But now that I’ve had some time to digest them, I’m liking them more. I still think they need a little *something* – maybe a “Miami Blue” bill on that black cap, or a non-black number on the front – but it’s not at all bad. There’s way too much black, blue and red in Major League baseball, but at least it’s a different blue.

(Puzzle back for card #4…)

My main problem with the black alternate is that there’s way too much black. As Nigel Tufnel said in This Is Spinal Tap, “How much more black could this be? And the answer is ‘None… None more black’.”

When I was looking at Marlins unis reactions yesterday on my phone, i noticed that on a small screen the black jersey showed up as illegible, just a few colored marks on a black shirt. It looks nice enough up close, but it’s going to be difficult to read the numbers from the stands. If I were made commissioner (of any sport, I may add), one of my first moves would be to require that jersey numbers be completely legible from the upper decks. Function over form, people…

(Puzzle back for card #5…)

I wanted to share one last custom, because this Fauxback set is intended to be an all-purpose set. Ever since I heard about the retirement of Caroll Spinney, the puppeteer who performed as Big Bird and Oscar The Grouch, I’ve wanted to make some sort of custom to commemorate this… so this seemed as good an opportunity to make one

(Puzzle back for card #3…)

By this point I think that many of you have figured out who’s on the puzzle backs. The first person to name the celebrity in the comments will win… a big ol’ thumbs up from me, and the admiration of your peers. Sorry, I’m not a “prize” kind of guy.

BTW, when I’ve shared all (or at least most of) the puzzle backs, I’ll also share the full puzzle. I’m not quite there yet.

It all started on Twitter when Super 70s Sports made fun of this 1990 Kingpins card.

The Super 70’s Sports caption on this was “Amazingly, despite exciting stars such as this, pro bowling trading cards didn’t take off.”

I won’t deny that the card is worthwhile just for the awkwardness of it, but two thoughts popped in my head almost simultaneously:

1) I remember using scoring system consoles like the one in the photo.

2) I’ve been bowling in leagues for years, how is it that I don’t have any bowling cards?

I decided to go out to COMC to rectify the lack of bowling cards and found out that there aren’t a lot of options out there.

The 1990 Kingpins set, which featured members of the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA), seem to be the most common bowling cards available. I started out looking for interesting pictures and names I was familiar with… I don’t follow pro bowling, but my parents (also league bowlers in their day) used to watch the Pro Bowlers Tour on TV in the 1970’s, and I sure as heck remember Johnny Petraglia.

Petraglia is a member of the PBA Hall Of Fame, and as part of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the PBA, was named one of the 50 greatest bowlers from 1958 to 2008.

Just to give you a look at the back of the Kingpins cards, here’s the back of Petraglia’s card

When I was thinking of bowlers to search on, I thought of Chris Hardwick, the host of TV shows like “Talking Dead” and “The Wall”; I knew his father had been a top bowler, and Chris Hardwick is no slouch himself, having hosted a web series called “Chris Hardwick’s All-Star Celebrity Bowling”.

So I searched on “Hardwick” and found his dad, Billy Hardwick.

Billy Hardwick was another bowler ranked in that same “50 greatest” list, and was twice named PBA Player of the year.

…But my bowling quest did not end there…

I found out there was at least one other American bowling card set, the 1973 PBA set.
This is Ernie Schlegel, who is also a member of the PBA HOF.

The 50 card set is a bit smaller than standard size. The front is full bleed and features a facsimile autograph.

The back is very rudimentary

These two sets seem to be the main targets of any bowling collection, but there are some other sets out there. There’s a Japanese set – 2014 BBM “Fairies On The Lane” – which features women bowlers. In searching COMC I discovered, very much to my surprise, there was an APBA bowling game in 1979.

I’m not sure how a bowling game like this would even work. I can’t imagine what kind of decisions would need to be made in a statistically-based game like this, other than whether to try to pick up the spare after getting a split.

At any rate, I don’t know how hard I’m going to chase bowling cards at this point… I would like to get at least one or two of those BBM cards, but I don’t see my bowling card collection going past one 9-pocket sheet.

I was recently graced with a padded envelope from CommishBob, whose The Five Tool Collector blog is regular reading for me, and whose tweets about his many retirement activities make me very jealous (but that’s another story).

Bob sent me a number of cards to aid me in my chase —

No, no, “chase” is not the right word for it… In my *casual pursuit* of the 1970 and 1983 Topps sets. I’m currently too lacking in focus to truly chase anything, much less vintage or semi-vintage sets.

I have my doubts as to whether my budget will allow me to ever complete 1970 Topps (looking at you, high #’ed Nolan Ryan), but I’m perfectly happy to keep after it and see how far I can get.

Bob sent me two cards which end in ‘0’ plus one which ends with ’25’, so you know right away that these are no mere commons.

I’ll start off with the HOFer, Gaylord Perry.
In 1970, Perry had 23 wins and 5 shutouts and finished a distant second to Bob Gibson in Cy Young voting.

1970 saw Tony Oliva lead the league in hits for the 5th (and final) time, and lead the league in doubles for the 4th (and final) time.
Oliva is one of those guys where I’m mildly surprised that he’s not a HOFer (He peaked at 47.3% in 1988). He was a 3-time batting champ, 8-time All-Star and the 1964 AL Rookie of the Year

Bobby Bonds has the card which ends with 25, possibly because he’d lead the NL with 120 runs in 1969.
Bonds was still a young stud at the time, 24 years old in 1970 and a year away from his first All-Star appearance.

With these two famous Giants in hand, I started to ponder whether I’d already hurdled the major obstacles towards a 1970 Giants team set… and then I said “Oh… Willie Mays. Never mind”.

Before we get to the cards from the other casual pursuit, let us cleanse the palate with two cards which were not off a wantlist but nevertheless greatly appreciated.

This card is from… (takes a deep breath)… The 1998 Fleer Sports Illustrated World Series Fever set.
The 1986 Mets were the greatest Mets team of my baseball lifetime, and I appreciate any cardboard representation of that team… especially MOOKIE!!! I have to admit, I can’t help liking Mookie Betts just because he’s another Mookie (although Betts is a Mookie that Red Sox fans would like).

Like most baseball card collectors, I always enjoy adding a Don Mossi card to my collection.
This is the sixth Mossi in my collection. I have to admit, I sometimes feel guilty for singling out Don Mossi because of his unique appearance, but I’ll blame early childhood exposure to “The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubblegum Book” for setting me down this path (and making the 1952 Topps Gus Zernial card a white whale for me).

OK, moving on… After getting a few of the 1983 Tribute cards in packs of 2018 Topps this year, it’s frankly kind of nice to get some real 1983’s which I need.

1983 saw the Baltimore Orioles win a World Championship… At that point in my life, the Orioles were just another team… although I will admit that I was rooting against the Phillies that year (but not against Tug McGraw… never against Tug himself).

Bob sent me both halves of the Orioles left field platoon that got them to the 1979 and 1983 World Series…

John Lowenstein…

…and Gary Roenicke

I loved these Super Veteran cards back in 1983; I wonder how well something like that would work now.
I would think that a subset which included guys like Bartolo Colon, Adrian Beltre, Miguel Cabrera and Ichiro would be a pretty darn cool.

Double shot of Bruce Sutter…

..as well as Larry Bowa, looking strange in a Cubs uniform…

…Even while these non-glossy, printed-on-grey-cardboard 1983 cards look so *right* when compared to their 2018 counterparts. I just can’t help it, I’m old school at heart.

As always, I have to send many thanks to Bob for the very enjoyable package! I’m relieved that one of Bob’s latest projects is something I may be able to contribute to, and a return package is in the works.

As with the other posts in this series, I’m simulating the checklist from the 1964 Topps Giant-Sized All-Stars set (commonly known as “1964 Giants”) by selecting three representative players from each team.

FYI, I’ve got some comments about the future of this series down at the end.

Spoiler alert: Both teams are going to feature a finalist for the NL Cy Young Award.

PHILLIES

Full disclosure: I semi-collect Aaron Nola because I saw him pitch in the minors a few years ago (and he was pretty impressive in the game I saw).

…Not that I need a disclaimer on including Nola. 17-6, 2.37 with 224 K’s and a 0.975 WHIP. Nola was an All-Star and was one of the top NL pitchers this season. Last year he went 12-11 for a team which lost 96 games.

Jake Arrieta is probably the most debatable of the three I’d selected; he’s clearly not the dominant pitcher who won the Cy Young in 2015, but he is one of the bigger names on the Phillies.
I’ll admit, now that in going back to retroactively justify his inclusion, I’m having a hard time doing it statistically. I’ll just say “He’s a big name on a young team” and leave it at that. I feel confident that any major card company would include either Arrieta or Carlos Santana in a team set just because of the name recognition.

Wrapping up with Rhys Hoskins; he lead the team in homers (34), RBI (96), doubles(38) and slugging (.496), plus he was second in runs scored (89).

I almost didn’t do a Mets team set, because early in the revival of this series I decided that I would not feature any teams which were sellers at the trade deadline… But I *am* a Mets fan, and I decided that Asdrubal Cabrera, Jose Bautista or Jeurys Familia were not going to make the final cut (although arguments could be made for Cabrera and Familia).

Like with Nola, you can’t have a discussion of who gets included without a no-brainer lobbed in the direction of Jacob deGrom. Ignore the 10-9 record he ended up with, the team’s bats and bullpen often failed him.

Focus instead on the league-leading 1.70 ERA, the 0.912 WHIP and the 269 strikeouts.
As any Mets fan can tell you (or at least point you in the general direction of), there were 22 games where deGrom pitched at least 5 innings while giving up no more than 1 run, and *eight* of those games ended in a no-decision, while two ended as losses. Turn half of those into wins and you’re looking at a 15-8 record to go with the other gaudy stats. (This message paid for by deGrom for Cy Young)

Noah Syndergaard pitched a shutout which, as a sad indicator of where the game is right now, tied for the league lead. He also went 13-4 (leading the team in wins and W/L %) with a 3.03 ERA, 155 K’s and a 1.212 WHIP.

The Mets aren’t all about starting pitching… MOSTLY, yes, but not entirely. There was a tight race for the position player represented here, and while a case could be made for Brandon Nimmo, I went instead with Michael Conforto who lead the team in runs, homers and RBI this year, plus lead the team in On-Base % and Slugging last year… as well as being a 2017 All-Star.

With these two teams I’ve finished half of the checklist. My plans are, for each of the remaining 15 teams, to list the three players I selected plus one custom “Giants” card.

However…

I’ve gotten enough positive feedback in the past couple of weeks that It’s made me open to considering any requests.

If you would like to see customs for all three players selected for any of the remaining teams (Angels, Blue Jays, Diamondbacks, Giants, Mariners, Marlins, Nationals, Orioles, Padres, Pirates, Rangers, Rays, Reds, Royals, Tigers), go ahead and make a request by leaving a comment or tweeting me (@Shlabotnik_Rpt).

…PLUS…

If you’d like to see any particular players and ask me nicely (as reader Adam Kaningher did when he asked for Kyle Freeland as an “Update card”), I will see what I can do.

For either type of request, how many I do will depend greatly on how much free time i have, as well as whether I can find any suitable images to use on these cards.

Thanks to a pair of PWEs from Shoebox Legends, I was able to make some progress with a relatively new project of mine: the “Dead Parrot” Frankenset, a project featuring NHL and WHA teams which are no more, which have ceased to be (as in the line from the Monty Python “Dead Parrot” sketch).

Currently in slot #138, from 1976-77 Topps… The Kansas City Scouts’ team card

The verdict: Sorry, Ron Harris, but an airbrushed Flame doesn’t stand up to a team full of Scouts.

THE CHALLENGER IS DEFEATED!

The challenger for Card #148, representing The Quebec Nordiques and 1992-93 Pro Set… Valeri Kamensky!
I wasn’t much of a hockey collector in the 1990’s, so this is the first 1992-93 Pro Set card I’ve ever held in my hand. It’s pretty nice, too bad things didn’t end well for Pro Set.

Currently in slot #148, representing the Hartford Whalers and 1983-84 O-Pee-Chee… Doug Sulliman

The verdict: This is a tough one; new card set vs. a Whaler shown wearing full-length hockey pants. Even though Whalers would normally defeat the Nords, all things being equal, I think I have to go with the Pro Set card for now, and revisit this down the road.

THE CHALLENGER IS VICTORIOUS!

The challenger for card #359, representing the Hartford Whalers and 1993-94 Parkhurst… Andrew Cassels!
Like with the previous challenger, this is the first card from this set I’ve ever owned… and it’s a nice set, from what I can see. Just a side note, the Whalers should never strayed from green as their primary color.

Slot #359 is currently unoccupied, so Cassels enters the FrankenSet unopposed.

The challenger for card #437…

Hold on, there’s a whistle from one of the linesmen, we’re going to have a stoppage of play…
Unfortunately my Dead Parrot Frankenset currently goes only to 396, so Claude Lapointe and this great goal celebration shot will have to wait and see if I ever expand the Dead Parrot binder.

In the meantime, this card will go into my general Hockey binder; given that the goal was against the rival Canadiens, I can just hear the roar echoing around Le Colisee…

The final card for today, challenging for slot #187, representing 2010-11 Pinnacle and…

…drum roll please…

THE ATLANTA THRASHERS, a team which is not represented in my Dead Parrot binder! The Thrashers played from 1999 to 2011, well after I stopped collecting hockey cards.

The challenger is Tobias “Toby” Enstrom, who played with the Thrashers/Jets franchise until last season, and went home to play in Sweden for this season.
Currently in slot #187, representing 1974-75 Topps and the Kansas City Scouts… Simon Nolet!

The Verdict: I was tempted to “Let the wookiee win” and replace an airbrushed Flyer with the first Thrasher to come my way… but there was another Thrasher card in the PWEs (and it’s numbered #188 so it would be this card’s “neighbor”), so for now I’m going to keep Nolet in the spot and revisit this later if the second Thrasher card doesn’t make it.

THE CHALLENGER IS DEFEATED! (FOR NOW)

Thank you, Shane! This is the first of three posts on cards sent by the owner/operator of Shoebox Legends, and I will thank Shane each and every time.

It’s funny how things work out… There was a regional card show in October that I wanted to go to, but I couldn’t because I was on-call for work and couldn’t be driving two hours away.

I felt a little bit better about it because I knew I had a shipment coming from COMC. Shortly after I got that, I got a PWE from Shoebox Legends… followed by a padded envelope from The Five Tool Collector… and another PWE from Shoebox Legends… and a PWE from Dime Boxes… So you know you’re going to be seeing a fair amount of these cards in the near future.

A normal person might say “When it rains, it pours” in reference to the Morton Salt slogan… but odd people like me are more likely to quote the title of an obscure, early They Might Be Giants song… because that’s the way I roll.

So anyway, today’s post features cards I got over the summer, because I need time to scan all of these PWE’s and COMC cards I got.

This card caught my attention because you don’t often see cards where a manager has a couple of bats slung over his shoulder.
Then again, Kasko was just a few years removed from his playing days and still in his 30’s. Kasko managed the Sox for four years, and was remarkably consistent, winning 87, 85, 85 and 88 games. His teams finished 3rd, 3rd, 2nd and 2nd.

This 10-year-old relic of the 2018 World Series MVP has a story behind it…
I pulled it from a pack in 2008, when I didn’t really know who Steve Pearce was. A couple of years later I sent it in as part of my first submission to COMC… where it didn’t sell… and didn’t sell… and didn’t sell…

While it was in the COMC inventory not selling, Steve Pearce became an Oriole and I grew to like him… and I decided “Well, if nobody wants to buy this card I may as well take it back”, so I ended up paying to have COMC ship it back to me… but it was well worth the 25 cents.

I’ve been a Steelers fan for about 35 years, and a few years ago I decided on 1972 as a reasonable starting point for my Steelers collection. 1972 was the first year since 1947 that they made the playoffs, and the 1971 set has the very expensive rookie cards of Terry Bradshaw and “Mean” Joe Greene.

…Until I discovered Philadelphia Gum football cards. That’s when my Steelers goals fell apart. As little as I collect football lately, I’m happy with just aimlessly picking up cards which catch my eye and fit my budget.
Ben McGee played in two Pro Bowls and was a college coach after his career was over. One other thing I like about Philadelphia Gum cards is that they all came before the Steelers settled on their iconic uniforms.

This Barry Larkin card caught my eye when I was quickly going through a nickel box; it’s a little scuffed and doesn’t fit into my collection in any significant way, so it will eventually go into my “Cool Cards And Oddballs” binder…
…Once I’ve set up a “Cool Cards And Oddballs” binder.

Action Packed is something I’d ignored back in the day – I saw the embossed cards as just an uninteresting gimmick – but I’ve been getting into them over the past year or so.
I still find the embossing fairly annoying, but I’ve gotten past that and focused on the photos and player selection, which is often quite good.

Wrapping up with a cool action shot from 1992 Leaf.
…Just because it’s a cool action shot. The sliding Oriole doesn’t hurt. This one is either going in my 1992 Frankenset (when I get around to that) or my “Cool Cards” binder (when I get around to that).

As for the title track of this post, the song was originally a ‘b-side’ to “Don’t Let’s Start” and would later end up on compilations like “Miscellaneous T” and “Then: The Earlier Years”.